Jellicoe becomes First Sea Lord

At the beginning of December 1916 Admiral John Jellicoe, until recently commander of the Grand Fleet, took up the post of First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Royal Navy. The change had been announced in the House of Commons as early as 29 November. The British chronology of the war states that his predecessor, Admiral Henry Jackson, stepped down on 3 December and Jellicoe was appointed on 4 December. The British Naval Staff monograph gives the same date. Jellicoe himself, however, wrote in his memoirs that although he arrived in London on 29 November, because of influenza he took over from Jackson only on 5 December, his 57th birthday.

Jackson’s departure

Jackson had headed the navy since May 1915, when he replaced John Fisher after the Dardanelles crisis. He was an outstanding technical expert, one of the pioneers of wireless telegraphy, and he worked well with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur Balfour. He dealt mainly with administrative matters, however, and lacked his predecessor’s charisma. In the autumn of 1916 his position was weakening: German destroyers were raiding the Strait of Dover with impunity, and submarines were sinking more and more ships. He left with honours. On 4 December he received the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and became President of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.

Men from the fleet

Jellicoe came to the Admiralty with a plan ready. As early as the beginning of November, summoned by Balfour to a conference in London, he had argued that the High Seas Fleet was unlikely to risk another battle until the Germans had tried a new submarine campaign, and that all efforts must now be concentrated on the defence of shipping. On accepting the post he asked for Admiral Cecil Burney, until then second-in-command of the Grand Fleet, to become Second Sea Lord, and for Commodore Lionel Halsey, Captain of the Fleet, to become Fourth Sea Lord. All these appointments went through.

The most important innovation was the Anti-Submarine Division in the Admiralty staff. Its director was Rear-Admiral Alexander Duff, and his deputy Captain Frederic Dreyer, until then captain of Jellicoe’s flagship. The division began work in December. At first it numbered a dozen or so officers, most of whom had come with Jellicoe from the fleet, and it took over from the Operations Division the direction of all ships and aircraft hunting submarines, as well as minesweeping. It was also to study and improve new methods of fighting U-boats, from depth charges to hydrophones.

First Sea Lord in a time of crisis

Jellicoe came to the Admiralty in the middle of a political crisis. Prime Minister Asquith resigned the next day, and according to Jellicoe’s memoirs he served under Balfour for only two or three days. In the new government of David Lloyd George the Admiralty went to Edward Carson, with whom Jellicoe dealt above all with the submarine threat from their very first talks. The most urgent need was simple: guns for merchant ships. German submarines were then sinking many ships by gunfire on the surface, and an armed ship could resist such an attack.

The scale of the threat was enormous. According to the British staff monograph, in the half-year from August 1916 to January 1917 submarines sank on average more than 250,000 tons of British, Allied and neutral shipping a month, even though Germany was still observing restrictions. The new Admiralty leadership, however, did not yet see salvation in convoys (PL). Jellicoe, together with other admirals, had earlier argued to politicians that a large group of ships would be an easy target and that the masters of merchant ships would be unable to keep station. On 21 December Duff argued in a memorandum that differences in speed and inevitable straggling cancelled out the benefits of convoy. At the end of 1916 the Admiralty was clearly opposed to it and was relying on arming ships.

The question was taken up again the following year, when Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare and shipping losses doubled. In the spring of 1917 the Admiralty began introducing convoys, which in the end broke the crisis. Jellicoe, increasingly pessimistic and at odds with Lloyd George, lost his post in December 1917.